OxBlog

Sunday, October 31, 2004

# Posted 10:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY SAMHAIN: A very happy Oíche Shamhna to all of our readers and friends!

In traditional Ireland, Samhain was the harvest festival marking the end of one year and beginning of the next. The two years wouldn't fully align, though, so for a short bit, time would quite literally be out of joint (thus the Celtic origins of the phrase from Macbeth.) Thus faeries would get lost, wander up around the world of men, and generally not know what they were about - so if you were kindly enough, you'd dress yourself up like a faery and go about, so when they ran into you, they'd run straightaways back to the faery world, and a big fright on them. Hence the original custom, which I've always found much nicer than its contemporary descendant. So a very happy maith Oíche Shamhna ort from OxBlog.

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